villagelogs | 021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Western Mathias.
WHEN: Days 021-023
WHAT: A cold storm approaches.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here!

RECOMMENDED ♫ Emily Kinney & Lauren Cohan "The Parting Glass"

DAYS 021-023
THE WORLD TURNS WHITE
“Are ye the ghosts of fallen leaves, O flakes of snow,
For which, through naked trees, the winds A-mourning go?”
— John Banister Tabb
The howling wind is what wakes the residents of Mathias each day now as the world turns slowly into a bleak stretch of white. Snow continues to fall in thick curtains of flakes that accumulate on trees and rooftops, swirling sideways in the gusts of wind that bow trees and whistle through any crack they can find. The drifts of snow grow taller against the buildings and the wind makes the already freezing temperatures feel bitterly cold.

By day 022, the far ends of streets begin to resemble the hazardous fog with how little becomes visible as the winds pick up. Buildings can still be discerned as dark shapes but the weather's warning becomes clear — a storm is coming. And by day 023, the storm arrives properly, the wind still screaming through the streets like a winter banshee announcing so many deaths to come. These conditions are far from hospitable and only the truly mad would be foolish enough to venture outside in weather such as this.

THE NEWLY ARRIVED
With an embrace of wintery white, Mathias offers a chilly welcome to its newest residents. They awake along the southern treeline bordering Mathias, near the small makeshift cemetery containing a handful of wooden markers erected without names or signifiers of those buried within. And not far from them is the schoolhouse, where in a snowdrift they will the frozen corpse of a young woman named Rey.

LIGHTS IN THE DARKNESS
“A lantern can give you light only when you light it”
— Munia Khan
When residents wake on the morning of day 021, they will find outside in the snow the abandoned lanterns of those shadowy spectres who have moved so silently through Mathias. Each nestled in a patch of frozen white outside their door, the lanterns are now cold to the touch, the half-burned candle within each one seeming to have been lit so very long ago. Inside the glass encasement is a small rolled piece of paper, upon which is written:

keep it lit
There is nothing more, and the prior owners of these lanterns will not return within these days.

There is one lantern waiting outside the building for each resident wherever they are sleeping — the exception for this is those who may have already claimed a lantern as their own. Removing a lantern from its resting place results in no apparent reaction, nor does lighting or not lighting it. However, whatever residents ultimately choose to do with these lanterns should be reported.

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— SNOW continues to fall, resulting over the three days in upwards of a foot of accumulation. The winds blow in gusts over 35 mph.

— VOICES are not openly haunting our residents, though they may still be occasionally encountered in the more heavily decayed buildings where some rooms seem to almost swallow whatever light tries to enter them.

— THE FOG has still receded from the town proper and much of the eastern and northern beach, with the path through the northern forest to the lighthouse still clear on day 021. On day 022, however, as the storm worsens, the fog returns to the paths in the forest, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper or else.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue to plague the town. While Zed Martin has returned, Rey's corpse will be found in a snowdrift near the Schoolhouse; she disappeared on day 018.

— THE STRANGER is gone.

— THE SPECTRES are gone.

OOC UPDATES

— DISCOVERIES have been collected and collated for your review. Please note that this is OOC information only, put together for the purpose of helping you as players see connections and possibilities for CR and your own character's potential avenues of exploration and investigation. (If we are missing something, please report it so we can add it to the list.)

— AP REWARDS have a new option now — Ideas may be requested if you find yourself stuck. You may now claim up to 2 rewards per log: (1) idea and (1) other reward.

— SANITY may be regained in two ways: self-medication and treatment. In Mathias, this means such coping mechanisms as drinking or drugging oneself into a stupor that allows them to face their fears and issues, or talking to someone about those fears and issues. Since both of these will take some time, best get started. (A form will be added to the Sanity page.)

— REMINDERS — Don't forget about the bulletin board. Please continue reporting your updates to locations, plots, and discoveries. The map of Mathias has been added to the locations page for ease of reference. Make sure your character's sanity level is kept updated. Prospective players are still joining the TDM, so it's recommended to track new top-levels so you don't miss them.

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Raylan didn't answer for a long moment, jaw tensing. He wasn't making the statement like John didn't know; it was called small talk to distract him. But no. No weaknesses around John Constantine, lest one be left in the middle of the desert.

"Vanilla ice cream is my favorite. What'd'ya mean walls talk?"

At that, John had a proper laugh. He hadn't expected the ice cream comment. Noted though. For, ah, future reasons. Ones that were not to be disclosed at the moment.

"Oh, I'll be sure to remember that one. Never know when we'll find the local ice cream parlor." John had a teasing grin in his tone. Oh, that would be fun. "Walls hold secrets, mate. Usually buried inside of them. Skeletons, hidden messages, diaries."

"I do just about as terrible things for whiskey as I would for ice cream, you got no idea," he lamented as their feet carried them further up the Lighthouse, the stairs seeming to yawn against the small backdrop of the turning stairwell.

"You're talkin' false walls, false floors, shit hidden away behind the panelling and drywall. If all of this ain't stone, I'll trade my hat in for a drivers cap. But I know what you're talkin' about. More than half of Harlan's old houses got some form of it. Few places here too."

"Maybe if you ask nice enough? Good ol' Mathias will hear your pleas and open up a parlor. Or, see if they've got some tucked away in that general store freezer."

Why the hell not? They had cigarettes.

"Don't bet that. It'd be a fucking shame if you lost that hat, mate."

John kept tapping along the wall as they climbed. Right up until they got to the landing. A few more taps and his fingers came to a stop. He turned his head, looking at the bit of chipped brick. Then, a head tilt.

"Looks like more than my love note has faded and taken some damage."

"General Store Freezer is better than any other option - don't get me started," he said, forcing in a frayed sense of humor that didn't reach far. But the smile he gave over to John at the statement was a little better; he'd take the compliment.

Raylan stopped with him, chin lifting as he narrowed his focus back to the wall.

"Ain't that the way love goes?" Taking a deep breath, Raylan stepped outside, letting his breath out slowly as it was snatched away by the wind, and worked his way around to the back, to where he could see the town.

"You oughta take another mental snapshot. Let Zed know. Update our maps. I hope you've gotten her to do some of it - it'll be important for all of us."

"Oh, I'm surprised, Marshal! I thought you would of looked in that freezer section to procure some icecream already."

He was a bit serious about that.

The comment about love made him huff sadly. Oh, it was certainly the way it went. In all forms of love too. It'd just be a matter of time before Zed was on her way out. Chas was the only one stupid enough to stick around him this long.

"Once I get her home? I plan on it." John glanced up at Raylan before picking more at the brick. He handed the lighter over to the Marshal before trying to give it a good pull.

Then his ribs twinged. A sharp pain went up his sides and he hissed loudly, wincing.

"Fuck."

"Haven't stopped in at all yet," Raylan said with a note of pride before stepping out, like an addict holding off from indulging. His words about map making may have not made it back inside to John and since he didn't have any company out, he took the mental snapshot himself and turned back around.

Once he came back in, he took the lighter and held it, eyeing John sidelong as he started to pick away at it. The wince had him rolling his eyes and pulling John back by the cuff, handing him his lighter back.

"Here, let me." Grinding the pads of his fingers in, Raylan starts tugging and pulling at the stone, bricks falling one after the other onto the landing floor. "What the fuck is that," he muttered as they started uncovering a symbol.

John had the thought of the map rumbling in the back of his head. It'd be something to revisit. For now, his attention was on the wall. He hadn't even properly noticed that Raylan stepped out for a quick picture before coming back in. Namely because he was focused on the bloody wall.

"Shit," John muttered under his breath as Raylan pulled him away. Nothing worse than being caught with a kick to the pride and bollocks.

After a moment he stepped up beside Raylan to look at what he had found. His head tilted.

"That, mate, is a spooky scribble."

He didn't think anything of John for having broken ribs and not being able to tear the brick away as he might want to. It was the thought and the fire that counts.

"Spooky scribble," Raylan echoed with a pinch of confusion before turning back to pull off a few more blocks, dusting off the edges here and there and testing the firmness of the markings. It didn't come off on his fingertips. "You recognize it? Mister Master of Spooky Scribble?"

Mister Master of the Spooky Scribble.

He gave a chuckle.

"Can't say that I have. I might know a thing or two about my reality? But, Mathias is a whole different beast." He knelt down to look into the space better. "Usually they're meant for healing or growth of something if they're clockwise. Counter clock wise will mean the opposite. Energy leaving the person, or energy collapsing into the person."

"So no similarities to the stuff that's been found in the Town Hall?" His head tilted a little, voice drifting out of his normal attention as he sank into open thought. "I wonder if this is in the library. Wards or something, in the most important buildings... Wonder if the fire had anything to do with it. Maybe it took everythin' out and they decided to rebuild with better.. protections.."

It was all ramble off the top and out the back of his head as he struggled with the why's. Maybe the Why's would lead them to the 'What the hell is this for'. Anything to get them a step further up this shit creek sans paddles.

"First time I've seen something like this in the town. The only other spooky scribble I know of is that message in blood down at Town Hall." John shook his head. "Now, that's a thought. Suppose our next order of business is to go about destroying the walls in the library, eh?"

Not that he minded the idea. It was oddly therapeutic to get the stress out by breaking the library.

"So then, if it was wards... were they done to make sure It didn't come by?"

"I've already destroyed a few walls in this place, I'm down to destroy a few more," he admitted with a shrug of his shoulders and a bob of his head. What were they going to do to them for it?

"Why not? Ain't that how a cult works? If they were worshipin' the thing, puttin' up wards to sate it, keep it at bay.. I keep thinkin' about the note that was on the board originally. 'Why is this happening'. Generational traditions are hard to keep up..."

It was a theory, if on shaky legs..

021-023 » the ghosts of fallen leaves

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sorry if this reads oddly, he actually went outside onto the landing so

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Shit, I'm sorry, I never got a notif for this

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